Day two of E3 got of to a pretty normal start, but things then took a turn for the weird. GAMbIT loves to look at all the big AAA games in their fancy booths, (we’ll have recaps of all the big ones) but we really love the quicker games in the smaller booths looking to, in many cases, push the boundaries of the medium. We found some of those, but first let’s get to the more normal stuff.
Dragon Quest Builders
From the first look at things you would be forgiven for seeing Dragon Quest Builders as a Minecraft clone. In reality, well, yeah… Okay, so in reality there is a bit more to things here in terms on an actual game, but it’s going to be a hard sell here in the west where Minecraft is an insane monster. We will have a more detailed recap on the game tomorrow from our Square Enix contributor B. Simmons.
Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age
Finally Fantasy 12 is a game that I completely skipped over. After the bat-shit stupidity of a story in Final Fantasy 10 and the “thing” that was Final Fantasy 11, the twelfth installment just passed me by. Looking now it seems that I missed something really special. I love when games screw with things and make wild changes to core mechanics. This new remake, or HD edition, looked really nice, although some more can be done to the world textures. Characters look great but the world they inhabit sometimes looks very PS2. There is also this weird sort of filter (motion blur?) that just looks out-of-place. The action drops the turn-based stuff of past games and if you can forgive the game not knowing who the main protagonist is, this is one to take a stab at. B. Simmons will have a breakdown coming soon as he played the original and can get into all the details. If you want to see us playing FFXII then head over to our Facebook page for our Facebook Live from Square Enix.
#FinalFantasyXII The Zodiac Age at #E32016 #E3 #SquareEnix
A photo posted by J. Luis (@retroguy1985) on
Deus Ex – Adam Jensen Prosthetic Arm
I am a huge fan of all things Deus Ex, so when I heard that the team was working to develop an actual prosthetic arm based of Jensen’s, I was all over it. The arm will be available soon and people will be able to get a new arm based on the one from the game. It’s an amazing idea that brings the world of video games and technology together. The demo that was on the floor was tied into a camera and allowed the user to manipulate the hand in the display. Fingers were all independent and watching the hand react in what see,ed like real-time was pretty awesome. Check out the video below and prepare to be impressed.
Monster Hunter Generations
I don’t play any Monster Hunter games so I am a pretty good person to look at this. I did run some of a PSP version of the game with B. Simmons and had a fun time. This event demo lasted only 15 minutes and take four of us taking on a random monster across a familiar Monster Hunter layout, or so I’m told. We our course screwed the pooch and did not survive the encounter, but it was a lot of fun. The game looks really nice and seems to be pushing the 3DS to its limit. Again, B. Simmons will get a more in-depth look at the new class and ability system the game plays with.
#MonsterHunterGenerations demo #E3 #E32016
A photo posted by J. Luis (@retroguy1985) on
Injustice 2
This is the game many online were excited about and it did not disappoint. It racked up a lot of “Best of Show” awards from many publications that like to kiss publisher ass, but no matter how cool it is we can’t give an award like that to something we can’t actually play. I know, we are so edgy and out there… Still, what we saw did explain a lot of details on the game. The armor we saw in the trailer plays an important role, but not like it did in said trailer. Instead the game now has RPG elements and you gain item drops after each match. There are thousands (so they say) of costume bits that you can unlock.
Here’s to hoping there won’t be paid DLC to fast-track these. The armor is important because each drop has unique stats so you can turn each character into someone who is unique to you. The armor changes up the look of each character and adjusts their stats so you can have a stealthy Batman or a “beat the shit out of you cool Zack Snyder” Batman. This should allow for a lot of depth and should keep players playing to unlock hundreds of amor bits for each character. These drops can be earned during the match so you can put them on your character mid match. Everything else is back and bigger than ever, including some wicked cool super moves. Injustice 2 looks on track and should be another hit fighting game, and it didn’t hurt that we watched the presentation along with Echo Kellum from Arrow fame.
Clapper Game
Things took a turn for the weird when we hit up the IndieCade section of the convention where all sorts of quirky ideas were being shown. Things like Clapper Game for iPad took the idea of DDR but added a multiplayer twist. You need two players and the camera serves as the sensor as you play a game of paddy cake with a friend. I’m surprised at the responsiveness that the front facing camera and the game seemed to hit all the right beats.
A photo posted by J. Luis (@retroguy1985) on
The Delusions of Von Sottendorff
There was only one game at the IndieCade that was using something other than a PC. The Delusions of Von Sottendorff is a puzzle game that looks really difficult and scary to grasp, yet once you figure things out the mechanics become almost second nature. Your job is to collect a key, a puzzle piece, and get out of the level. It all seems really basic until you see the thing in action. There are multiple room on-screen that can be manipulated in strange ways. Slide them around so doors line up, adjust the camera to get new vantage points for exits, and on and on. A very cool idea that hit the 3DS this past holiday season but with no much push. They are currently working to (fingers crossed) get the game on other platforms if the team from Spain can lock down a publisher. Also, the game has a weird name so that’s a plus in my book.
Infinite-O
Infinite-O is a game that many shied away from simply because of the controller. It wasn’t that it was complicated looking or anything, rather that it was a plushie vagina. The artist behind this game/art installation was using that vagina to make a point about the state of the video game culture, and it worked. You’d be surprised at the gamers that laughed or were put of because of a female body part, yet just got done putting a chainsaw to people, running over civilians, and blowing heads of bodies. And then here they are afford and uncomfortable of something so natural. There was a lot more depth to the message here that I’ll get into another time as we are following this project pretty closely. There game itself is based on a dream the artist had so its super weird and out there, but after listening to the artist and developer talk as we played you can really see something meaningful underneath. Plus, who doesn’t like the idea of controlling three legs joined together by using a vagina that forces you to reset but putting your finger in its anus. This one is weird, but in a really fun way.
What is even happening right now ha-ha #E3 #E32016
A video posted by J. Luis (@retroguy1985) on
Devolver Digital
After some vagina time we went to see the lovely people at Devolver Digital and spent too much time eating their free food and drinking their free booze. Revolver are good people who publish a lot of weird game so I already liked them, but going out of their way to provide free drinks and food without craving any of their games down your throat was really cool. We also ran into our new friends from Infinite-O and spent a lot of tim talking about video games as art and how the medium can be used to push boundaries of thought as well as making games that are fun. Good time all around.
That’s it for day 2, but day 3 holds a lot more fun. We have a couple of meetings and will have some coverage of some more game as well. Be sure to follow us on twitter (@Gambit_Magazine) to follow us throughout the day. And stay tuned for lots of write-ups of many games, as well as our upcoming “BEST OF E3” awards that will drop this Friday.
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